VOLUME VI, CHAPTER 3, SECTION 10

VOLUME VI, CHAPTER 3, SECTION 10

The Old Woman Who Died in Pain Guarding Her Money, and Not Bringing Him Down

The last section took you up close to that hand, and let you see clearly that he is not a monster, that he is a person, with a lock on his head still, the tightest-drawn lock of all, earn no money and be wiped out. This section first tells you a story, of an old woman who died in pain guarding her money, to let you see into the heart of a person trapped by money, and see what is hidden there, which is very often not the thing you take it to be. Then it answers the question that has hung all along, what, in the end, is to be done with that hand.

I. An Old Woman Who Died in Pain Guarding Her Money

Once, there was a very rich old woman. How rich? She fell ill and lay bedridden, in great pain, and it was the kind of illness that, with a little money spent, with proper treatment, could have been treated, could have been made not so painful. But she would not treat it. She could not bear to spend the money. She felt that treating the illness was too dear, that one course of it would cost a great sum, and she could not bear it. And so, guarding a house full of money, she endured, and dragged on, and in the end was taken by that illness which could have been treated.

Hearing this far, a few words most likely rise in your heart. This old woman, a slave to money, a miser, a fool. Guarding so much money, unwilling to spend it to save her own life, dying there in pain, what was she after? Is this not the most foolish, the most pitiable, the least-worth-it thing under heaven? Once, this too was the thought. But later, thinking one layer deeper, the whole story turns over.

That money, that house full of money, was not earned by her. It was her lover's, the lover who had long since passed away, a whole lifetime of his hard toil, saved up and left to her.

Now look again at this old woman. She guarded that money, and would die in pain rather than touch it, and what she was guarding, was it truly money? It was not. What she was guarding was her lover. It was her lover's whole lifetime of toil, the last thing her lover left her, the bond between her and the one who was gone, a bond that could never be joined again and that she could not bear to sever. In her heart, that money had long since ceased to be money. It was the proof that her lover had lived, the warmth of that person that she could still clutch in her hand. To spend it, to treat her own illness, was, in her heart, to scatter the thing her lover had left, to loosen the last thread that still tied her to that person. She would rather die in pain herself than let go of this love.

You see, it is the same old woman. Stand far off, and what you see is a slave to money, a miser, a fool, pitiable and not worth it. Come up close, and see into the bottom of her heart, and what you see is a deeply loving, pitiable person, guarding her dead husband's love, trapped by that love, who would rather die in pain than let go. Where is the difference? The difference is in you, in whether you came close, whether you saw down to the bottom of her. Standing far off, you see only that she clutches her money, will not spend it, dies in pain, and you give her one word, fool. Come up close, and you see that what she clutches is love, is her dead husband, is a feeling she cannot loosen, and in your heart there is only an ache left.

This story, set here in this chapter, is not told idly. It means to teach you a most important skill, that in looking at a person, do not look from far off, come up close, and look down to his bottom. From far off, everyone is a flat shadow, and you paste a label on him, fool, greedy, evil, monster, and paste it and are done. But come up close, look down to his bottom, and you will very often find that under that shadow is a living person of flesh and blood, with his own bitterness, his own hardship, his own unspeakable hidden grief. How many people have been wronged a whole lifetime by that label seen from far off. That old woman who died guarding her money, had no one come close to her, seen into the bottom of her heart, she would forever have been, in the mouths of the world, that foolish slave to money, and no one would ever have known that what she guarded was a love heavier than her own life. To look at a person down to his bottom, this is the first skill this story teaches you.

Now, set this old woman and that person from the last section, the one clutching a mountain of gold, unable to stop, side by side. Stand far off and look at that one clutching the mountain of gold, and what you see is greed, evil, anti-human, a monster. But suppose you were, as with this old woman, to come up close, and see down to his bottom? You might well see that under that mountain of gold he clutches, there is also trapped a thing you never expected. Perhaps it is that lock of let-go-and-be-wiped-out, driving him so he dares not let go. Perhaps it is that his whole life, no one ever taught him, and he himself never learned, any way of living but winning, but piling it higher. Perhaps it is some thing that even he cannot put into words, a thing that has him trapped.

This is not to make excuses for him. It is to have you see one thing clearly. Look at that old woman, and if you only stand far off and curse her a fool, you have got her entirely wrong. In the same way, look at that one clutching the mountain of gold, and if you only stand far off and curse him an anti-human monster, you, most likely, have got him wrong too. He is not a monster. He is, like that old woman, a person trapped by something.

II. Not Bringing Him Down; Bring Him Down, and the One Swapped In Is Fiercer Still

See this layer clearly, and what is to be done with this trapped person? The most direct answer in your heart is most likely still those two words, bring down. Drag him out, bring him down, settle the score, make him spit back out what he wrung, what he crowded away. Is this not satisfying? Is this not justice?

Let me ask you first to weigh those two words, justice. Let me tell you a line that grates on the ear, and that chills you the moment you think it over. In this world, the ones who kill, who set fires, who drive people to the wall, not one of them thinks himself to be doing evil. Every one of them thinks himself to be upholding justice. The one who starts a war thinks he fights for justice. The one who burns down another's house thinks he acts for heaven. The ones who raise up those two words, justice, and go beating people with them, very often are themselves the next to do evil.

Look back over humanity's thousands of years, and the greatest disasters, the deepest blood, were for the most part not made by villains openly doing evil. They were made by a crowd of people who thought themselves to be upholding justice. They raised high the great flag of justice and, righteously, went to beat, to strip, to settle scores with the ones they had decided were the bad people. And beating on and on, the flag still raised, the people changed, and they became the new abusers, and made new wrongs, new blood. Those two words, justice, are the most deceiving, and the easiest to lead a person down into the ditch. The moment a person feels that he holds justice in his hand, and that the one facing him is an evil to be wiped out, he will do any cruel thing at all, and do it with an easy heart. So this book, from its first page, does not stand on the side of justice. Here it judges no one, convicts no one, does not raise the great flag of justice to bring anyone down. Raise that flag, and the one writing the book has himself become that person who thinks he fights for justice.

Then what does it hold should be done with this hand? It holds that he should not be brought down. Do not be anxious yet. Let me give you two reasons, one that speaks of the practical stakes, and one that speaks of the root.

First, the practical. To bring him down is useless. Look back at that lock from the last section. He cannot stop, because there is locked on his head, earn no money and be wiped out. That lock was slung on by the investors, by that whole mechanism of must keep earning without end, and swap the man out if he does not. Very well, now you bring him down, drag him off his seat. And then? That lock is still there. That seat is still empty. The investors will at once find the next man and put him in the seat, and more, will find a man fiercer than the last, a man who earns better and has less mercy, and put him in. Because what that lock wants is a man who earns, a man willing to be fierce. You bring one down, and the lock hands you back a fiercer one. You bring that one down, and it swaps in a fiercer one still. Bring down a hundred, and the lock is still there, and the hundred and first sits down in the seat and wrings just the same. You bustle about, bring down a whole string of people, and that lock has not moved an inch.

Do you see it now? The one truly doing the harm is not the person sitting in that seat, it is that lock over the seat. Aim at the person and strike, and you can strike a whole lifetime and never be done, because the lock is still there and the man is replaced crop after crop. You have to aim at the lock and undo it. Undo the lock, and the man in that seat no longer has to be driven to wring, and he lets go of his own accord, and you need bring down not one of them.

Think this reasoning through, and you understand these hundred years, all the many times of crying to strike and kill, all the many times a batch of people was gloriously brought down, and how the harm-doing, at the end of it, still never stopped. It is because everyone fixed their eyes on the wrong place. Everyone fixed their eyes on the person in the seat, hated him, cursed him, meant to bring him down, and no one went and looked at the lock on his head, at the seat that drove him to evil. Bring the man down, and everyone feels they have vented a breath of fury, and that lock, that seat, is left there untouched, and another man sits down and goes on doing harm. It is like a river fouled at the source. You do not go and block the source of the filth, you only go and curse, and scoop the filth out of the river, and you can scoop a whole lifetime and the river is still foul, because the source is still discharging into it. To truly cure it, you have to go and block the source. And the source of the harm is that lock, not the locked man sitting in the seat.

Second, the root. He, too, is a person to be saved. All the great effort just spent, to have you see clearly that he is not a monster but a locked person, trapped like that old woman, was for this very moment. Since he is not a monster but a locked person, then to a locked person, what is the thing to do? It is to undo his lock, and let him out too. The front of this chapter, saving the slave, was letting the locked out. Saving the laborer was loosening the welded man. Saving the one who lives on capital was settling the frightened man. All the way along, what was done is the same one thing, see a locked person, and go and undo his lock, and let him out. Come to this one clutching the mountain of gold, and by what right would you change to another set of rules? By what right, the locked people before him, saved, let out, and at him, dragged, beaten? No. He too is a locked person. To save him is the same one thing, undo his lock, and let him, too, out.

Undo him from that lock of earn-no-money-and-be-wiped-out, so that he need no longer be driven to wring people, so that he too can let go, and, like a person, want his three meals and his bed, his bit of steadiness. This, and only this, truly undoes the deadlock. To bring him down does not undo it, it swaps in a fiercer one. To save him, to undo his lock, undoes it.

You may still be a little unwilling. By what right should a man who wrung so many people be saved too? Let me tell you, to save him is not because he is clean, is not to wash away his crime. It is because only by undoing his lock, and letting him let go, can the people he wrung truly be saved. Hate him, bring him down, and satisfying it is, but that lock is still there, and the next to sit is fiercer, and the wrung are given a change of broth but not of medicine, and go on suffering. Save him, undo his lock, and he lets go, and that whole great crowd he wrung is loosened along with him. To save him is not for his one self, it is to unbind him together with the great crowd of locked people beneath him. This, and this alone, truly undoes the whole thing. And his lock, how is it undone? This lock is too tight, too deep, more than this one section, this one chapter, can finish undoing. It is tied to investment, tied to power, tied to a whole mechanism. This book has three things laid up in the back, to come and undo it, culture, politics, law. And one thing more important still, that there is for the first time enough, that productive power has taken the place of grabbing, which the back of this chapter will speak of. How it is undone, the back will tell in detail. This section only nails down this one line for you, do not bring him down. Bring him down, and a fiercer one is installed, and the lock is still there. And besides, he too is a locked person, a person to be saved. What must truly be dealt with was never that person, it is the lock on his head. Undo the lock, and he lets go of his own accord, and you need bring down not one. This, this is undoing the whole thing. The next section tells how that lock is undone, and that one lock takes four systems, undone all at once.

Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.